News Archive

An overflow crowd of Portlanders displayed their independent streak by challenging the ‘experts’ at the city council session dubbed ‘the great fluoridation debate.’ After the guest speakers, mostly medical professionals and doctors, presented the ‘party line’ – Oregon’s children’s teeth are rotting and the best way to fix it is water fluoridation – opponents presented […]

The Great Fluoride Debate of 2012 finally hit Portland on Thursday, with more than 275 people piling into City Hall to argue their case or simply listen to the occasional back-and-forth banter. With approval already certain — a majority of the Portland City Council says it will vote next Wednesday in favor of fluoridating local […]

The Portland City Council is scheduled to hear Commissioner Randy Leonard’s fluoride proposal at 2 p.m. Thursday. But security guards and other City Hall staffers were busy Thursday morning preparing for crowds that could rival those at public meetings for other controversial topics, including the 2009 hearing to rename 39th Avenue for Cesar Chavez and […]

Portland’s plan to add fluoride to a water supply serving more than 900,000 Oregonian’s has rankled some suburban city leaders who were left out. Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis and Tualatin Mayor Lou Ogden have written letters to Portland criticizing the City Council for deciding to fluoridate water without first consulting wholesale customers. Beyond serving city […]

It’s been an hour and a half after the massively packed city hall hearing on water fluoridation got started, and we’re still barely done with the scheduled part of the hearing—the high-powered and much-decorated parade of panelists and experts personally invited by city officials to testify on the health and economic benefits of fluoride. Not […]

Three of five city commissioners have said they’re in favor of adding fluoride to Portland city water. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says fluoride is a safe and healthy way to effectively prevent tooth decay.  But opposition is vocal and intense. The list of organizations that endorse fluoridation is long and authoratative. Think: […]

Like most of you, I’m not a doctor or scientist. And like all of you, I don’t have time to research every subject I need to make a decision about. We typically look to the opinions of individuals and organizations we know and trust and act accordingly. I’m the former chief executive officer of the […]

As the new executive director of the Northwest Health Foundation, Nichole Maher is both a fresh face and an old soul. At only 33, she comes to the organization already with 10 years experience as the head of NAYA, the Native American Youth and Family Center. It was a decade of working within one of […]

Portland City Council’s looming decision to fluoridate water from Bull Run Reservoir could prevent a lot of children from getting holes in their teeth. But the speedy-quick decision is punching holes in Portland’s relations with Gresham and other communities that buy 40 percent of Portland’s Bull Run water supply. “We really feel like we got […]

When Portland Water Bureau officials estimated that it would take at least five years to begin fluoridating local drinking water, Commissioner Randy Leonard pressed them to speed up. Four years? Not quickly enough, Leonard responded. Three? Nope. The Water Bureau went back to its engineers and asked them to squeeze as much as possible. “If […]